1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dual chamber infant bottle that segregates fresh milk from contaminated milk.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An infant typically consumes milk, breast milk or formula from a conventional baby bottle. However, the infant rarely consumes all of the formula or milk in the bottle. Accordingly, any remaining formula is contaminated with saliva. For health reasons, however, it is generally recommended that any formula or breast milk that has been mixed with saliva be discarded. Accordingly, the use of conventional baby bottles results in significant waste of breast milk or expensive infant formula.
A myriad of infant bottle designs exist in the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,603,784 issued to Chang discloses a nursing bottle system including a pair of axially joined, segregated containers. Each container includes a dispensing opening to which a nipple can be attached to feed an infant from a select one of the containers. The design allows two separate fluids to be selectively dispensed from a single bottle.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,856,995 issued to Wagner discloses a nursing bottle including a pair of reservoirs which are in selective communication with a single nipple. The nipple includes a housing having a dispensing aperture that can be rotated to align with either one of two apertures on a valve disc. Each aperture on the valve disc is in communication with a select one of the reservoirs allowing either of two, segregated liquids to be fed through a single nipple.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,237,800 issued to Barrett discloses a dual purpose water bottle that allows both a pet and a human to drink therefrom.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,353,964 issued to Liu et al. discloses a nursing bottle assembly including an outer bottle with an inner bottle received therein. The assembly further includes a valve means for allowing flow from either of the bottles or a combination of the two.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,729 issued to Iggulden et al. discloses a mixing bottle. As indicated above, several dual chamber infant bottles exist in the prior art. However, the dual chamber bottles referenced above are designed to allow dispensing of either of two segregated liquids through a single nipple. None of the above referenced patents include means for segregating contaminated from fresh infant formula or milk. The present invention solves this problem by providing a dual chamber infant bottle that allows a user to selectively deliver fresh milk or formula from a storage reservoir to a feeding reservoir thereby preventing saliva from contaminating formula within the storage reservoir.